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The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilization: a Call for a Reassessment

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The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilization: a Call for a Reassessment Comparative Civilizations Review Volume 23 Number 23 Fall 1990 Article 4 10-1-1990 The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilization: A Call for a Reassessment Andrée F. Sjoberg Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr Recommended Citation Sjoberg, Andrée F. (1990) "The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilization: A Call for a Reassessment," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 23 : No. 23 , Article 4. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Comparative Civilizations Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat THE DRAVIDIAN CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION: A CALL FOR A REASSESSMENT* ANDRH: F. SJOBF.RC ThIS paper examines the contributiOIl of the Dravidiall peoples to the development of Indian civilization and, more particularly, 1-1 indUlsm. Given the grand scope ofthis subject, I can only sketch the general contours of my argument rq~arding the available evidence and articulate some of the reasons for believing these data must be given due recognition. At the very least many aspects of the traditional view of the role of the Dravidian ... stand in need of rc-evaluation. This essay represents an attempt to synthesize a wide variety of data, including some sociolinguistic materials, so as to highlight certain overall patterns. It must of necessity bypass certa in impor- tant issues which could only be treated in a full-length book. Why this need for a revisionist perspective? Unfortunatelv, the image of the Dravidians, who have been a minority group (hom the perspective of social power), has been considerably distorted in the works of many scholars of Indian civilization-be they Indians or, especially, Westerners. Irldeed, early Indian history was largely compiled from the vantage point of the conquerors rather than of the conquered (the non-Aryan peoples). Until quite recently these patterns of interpretation were reinforced by it body of \Vestern scholars who, for reasons of their own, es- poused and in some cases even identified with the traditional Aryan perspective on Indian history. More particularly, they assumed that Indian civilization has been mainly Aryan ill its origin and development. 1 This pro-Aryan orientation is reHected even ill current writ- ings. As recently as 1980 the widely cited scholar O'Flaherty * A preliminary version of t his paper was presented at t he International Society for the Comparative Study ofCivilil.ations, Santa Fe, on May 31, 19R6. 40 Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 1 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4 41 (I9ROa:xviii) a\owed, albeit in a passing remark, that "the ancient Indians, after all, were Indo-Europeans par excellence." Are we expected to helieve that the ancient Indians were primarily Indo-Europeans? Hardly. This kind of unf(Jrtunate remark sup- ports my contention that the significance of the non-Aryan, and especially the Dravidian, element in Indian history has yet to be sufficiently appreciated. However, ill recent decades a minority of Indologists have \oiced the need f<)r an alternative perspective. During the past twenty years 1 have also sought in a modest way to correct the record. I recall rather vividly in the 60s and early 70s certain prominent Indologists dismissing my views regarding the impor- tance of t he Dravidian component in I ndian culture as misguided or ill-informed. Although I expect my current arguments to be challenged, t here is clearly a greater receptiveness today to ac- knowledgement of the Dravidian contribution to the develop- ment of Indian civilization. In order to deal with the main problem of the paper~i.e., the contribution of the Dravidian peoples to the formation and de- velopment of Indian civilization--<:ertain background data are in order. First, it is necessary to document the shifting orientation of indologists, especially in the West, towards the historical role of the Dravidians. Second, we shall examine briefly some of the problems concerning the nature of the evidence that we are seeking to interpret. Third, before we can consider the contribu- tion of t he Dravidians, we need to establish just who they are. All of this sets the stage for the discussion of the Dravidian compo- nent in the development of Indian civilization, and Hinduism in particular'. Changing P(TljJl'(tiz1e.1 o/Westerrl Scholars on the Role o/t/te Dral'iriians , I'he im portant earlier works 0(' this century exhibited a general neglect of the non-Aryan, essentially Dravidian, contribution to Hinduism alld Indian civilization in general. Zimmer's Phi/osojJlzies oj India (1951) (based on his last lectures in the early 1940s and seemingly representing a break with his earlier writ- ings) made him all exception among these scholars in that he recognized the crucial role of the non-Aryan element in the philosophical traditions of India. However, although this book is https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol23/iss23/4 2 - Sjoberg: The Dravidian Contribution to the Development of Indian Civilizat 42 COMPARATIVE CIVILIZATIONS REVIEW viewed as a classic work, the implications of his arguments con- cerning the Dravidians seem to have been generally ignored. Renou's Religions of Ancient India (1953), while it does tend to glorify the Vedic period, offers many bits of evidence of the importance of the non-Aryan component in the later Hinduism. However, the discussion is poorly organized and presented in such a low key that the non-Aryan dimension docs not clearly emerge. Nor does the author mention the Dravidians per se more than once or twice. Basham's widely cited monograph, The Won- der that was India (1968; first published in 1954), likewise refers to the Dravidians in only a few places (although he gives some attentioll to ancient Tamil literature). Also, it greatly underplays the role of the Dravidians and at times presents a negative image of them.2 Or consider the widely-used textbook edited by Elder, Lectures in Indian Civilization (1970). The hook includes some selections on Tamil literature and South Indian bhakti and very briefly treats the South Indian marriage system. But nowhere in this lengthy work does the reader gain an indication of the crucial role played by the Dravidians in the development of Hinduism and of Indian civilization as a whole. Another widely lIsed textbook on Hinduism, Hopkins' The Hindu Religious Tradition (1971), implicitly recognizes the non-Aryan component when it speaks of the challenge to the Brahmanical religion from the popular religious traditions, hut the existence of the Dravidians per se is barely acknowledged. Significantly, the author labels the post-Vedic developments that arose in response to pressures from the popular traditions as "the new Brahmanism" (e.g., p. 63)! Recently, however, some changes in these traditional patterns have been discernible. Basham, in his "Aryan and Non-Aryan in South Asia" (1979), presented a very different picture of the Dravidians than he did twenty-five years earlier. I n this later work he proceeded on the assumption that their role in the develop- ment of Indian civilization has been a crucial one. Allchin and Allchin, in The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakis- tan (1982), now simply take it for granted that the Dravidians were a significant factor in the formation of Indian civilization. Con- trast this with their 1968 work. And we find Staal (1983) attribut- ing aspects of the Vedic ritual to non-Aryan sources. Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 1990 3 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 23 [1990], No. 23, Art. 4 Andree F. Sjolmg 43 Crucial to this gradual modification of approach has been the work of BUlTow, Emeneau, and Kuiper (see discussion farther on) in presenting "hard" linguistic data which seem to place at least some Dravidians in northwestern India at the time of the arrival of the /\ryans and during the period of the composition of the body of Vedic scripture. Butalso significant in helping to turn the tide of opinion have been the recent works of specialists in Tamil culture, particularly Hart (1973, 1975, 1980) and Zvelebil (1973, 1975). These scholars have, however, fixused on one group, the Tamils, and are less apt to speak of Dravidian influ- ences in general. Among Westerners the scholar who comes closest to articulating my own general position concerning the critical role of the Dravidians in Hinduism and Indian civilization is Tyler, a highly respected anthropologist. In India: An An- thropological PenjH'ctive (1973:68) he observed that Aryan orthodoxy was obliter'ated by heterodoxy, and even though the heterodox cults thelllselves eventually declined, the pattern of Aryan dominance was fill'ever shattered. Relllnants of Arvan culture were to survive the destruction but only in "Dr'avidianized'" /(>rm. In every cul- tural sphere_tht' ancient Dravidian fi)nns "easserted the'..!.lselves, trans- mogrifying Ar'vall doctrines and conventions, reducing Aryan gods to Dravidian god~, replacing t he Aryan cult of the Ltmily altar with the Dravidian temple, subordinating ritualism to devotionalism, transfi)rm- ing class divisions into caste distinctions, and welding loosely knit tribal confederacies into centralized empires. The Hindu synthesis was less the dialectical reduction of orthodoxy and heterodoxy than the resurgence of the an~ient, aboriginal Indus civilization. In this process the rude, barbar'ic Aryan tribes were gradually civilized and eventually merged with the autochthonous Dravidians. Although elements of their' domestic cult and rit ualislll werejealously preserved by Rrahrnar~ priests, the hody of their culture survived only in fragmentar'y tales and allegories embed- ded in vast, syncretistic compendia.
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